Ron \Pigpen\" McKernan" Personal life what year was he born I don't know. Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? He developed a close friendship with fellow keyboardist Tom Constanten based on their mutual aversion to psychedelics and What happen with the keyboardist eventually served as best man at Constanten's first wedding. When did he get married I don't know. What happen in his personal life In the early years of the Grateful Dead, McKernan was easily recognisable by his biker image, making him a minor celebrity.
What was his biker image
What was Ron McKernan's biker image?
McKernan was close friends with American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin due to common musical influences and lifestyles, particularly a shared love of alcohol over other drugs; a poster from the early 1970s showed them together at 710 Ashbury. Joplin joined McKernan on stage at the Fillmore West on June 7, 1969, with the Grateful Dead to sing his signature "Turn On Your Love Light," reprising this duet on July 16, 1970, at the Euphoria Ballroom in San Rafael, California.  He developed a close friendship with fellow keyboardist Tom Constanten based on their mutual aversion to psychedelics and eventually served as best man at Constanten's first wedding. While his bandmates and friends were using cannabis, LSD, and other hallucinogenic drugs, McKernan preferred alcoholic beverages such as Thunderbird and Southern Comfort. Ironically, McKernan was arrested and fined after the cannabis bust on November 9, 1967, at 710 Ashbury Street, the Dead's communal home, even though he did not use the drug. The event was covered in the first issue of Rolling Stone, where the reporter noted McKernan had a substantial rifle collection and McKernan's picture appeared on a contemporary report in the San Francisco Chronicle. Because neither took illegal drugs, McKernan and Constanten were the only members of the band not arrested on the January 31, 1970, bust that inspired the lyrics of the band's song "Truckin'".  In the early years of the Grateful Dead, McKernan was easily recognisable by his biker image, making him a minor celebrity. In 1969, the band's record company, Warner Bros., ran a "Pigpen Look-Alike Contest". CANNOTANSWER
In 1969, the band's record company, Warner Bros., ran a "Pigpen Look-Alike Contest".
David Mann ( — ) was a California graphic artist whose paintings celebrated   culture, and choppers.  Called "the biker world's artist-in-residence," his images are ubiquitous in biker clubhouses and garages, on motorcycle gas tanks, tattoos, and on T-shirts and other memorabilia associated with biker culture. Choppers have been built based on the bikes first imagined in a David Mann painting.

In the words of an anthropologist studying biker culture in New Zealand, "Mann’s paintings set ‘outlaw’ Harley chopper motorcycles against surreal backgrounds, and distorted skylines, colourful images that celebrated the chopper motorcycle and the freedom of the open road  ...  Many of his images captured the ‘Easyrider’ ethos – speed, the open road, long flowing hair – freedom."  Most of his works were for the motorcycle industry, especially for motorcycle magazines.

Biography 
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Mann began drawing and painting at an early age. His first passion was custom cars and his first job was as an automobile painter. After High School, he left Kansas City and settled in California where he became interested in motorcycles. He became immersed in biker culture and motorcycles supplanted cars and pin-up girls in his artwork.

In 1963, Mann brought some of his artwork to the Kansas City Custom Car Show. There biker/artist Tom Fugle took an interest in his artwork, and with Mann's permission, showed a photo of the painting "Hollywood Run" to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, an artist and custom car painter, who was then the publisher of one of the first custom motorcycle magazines, Choppers.  Roth loved the painting and commissioned 10 (or as many as 14 or 20, according to different sources) original posters, which were made available in the back pages of Easyriders for many years.   In 1965, Mann joined Fugle's El Forastero Motorcycle Club, becoming one of the founding members of the Kansas City Charter.  In 1971 he answered an advertisement for a "motorcycle artist" in the back of a new motorcycle magazine called Easyriders.

After 1972 his artwork began appearing regularly in the magazine, and Mann's relationship with Easyriders would continue for the rest of his life. His art was reproduced as the magazine’s center spread beginning in 1973 and continued to be the publication's centerpiece until he was forced to retire in 2003 due to his failing health.   A collection of Mann's work was published in 1993 and updated in 2004.

In 2004 Mann was inducted into the motorcycle Hall of Fame by artist Billy Lane.

Mann died a day after his 64th birthday. Just before his death a custom motorcycle was commissioned in his honor from Orange County Choppers, to be featured in an episode of the reality television series American Chopper. The "David Mann Bike" featured custom artwork in Mann's style, but Mann died before it was completed. The vehicle served as a posthumous tribute to the artist, and his work was featured on the show. The episode was dedicated to Mann as well as Indian Larry, who had died a month earlier.

His ashes were to be interred in the gas tank of a Harley Sportster XLCH painted in his trademark "David Mann Red."  Mann is survived by his wife and three children.

The David Mann Chopper Fest is a custom motorcycle show themed after Mann's style and attitude. It has been held annually in Ventura, California since 2004.

Work 
One of Mann's frequent motifs was a motorcycle and its rider paired with a complementary or contrasting figure.  The simplest form is the iconic image of two bikes on the road side by side, and out of this grew different permutations that spanned 30 years. There are three main variations.

The first is a biker alongside a kindred figure, such as a trucker or other archetypal, biker-sympathetic character, or else a biker shadowed by a ghostly, mythic figure from the past, such as a medieval knight, Wild West gunfighter or trapper. The two will have several matching clothing items, or have an identical facial appearance in order to ensure the viewer does not fail to appreciate that the biker is a modern incarnation of the mythic persona.

Secondly, the biker would be seen alongside a social antagonist, such as hostile but foolish police officers, square motorists, or an upper-class caricature of The Man who is irritated by his wife's, daughter's or son's obvious admiration for and longing to ride away with the biker.

The third variation has a female figure, sometimes supernatural and watching over the biker from the sky, perhaps looming in the rider's memories, or else a real woman motorcycle passenger or woman in the background watching the biker ride away.

Mann painted three works where women are shown riding. One has a male and a female rider side by side on a road, and another has two women riding side by side on trikes at night, both with nothing remarkable happening.
Still another is a portrait of the Devil Dolls Motorcycle Club, the first all-female outlaw biker club in the United States, using the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop.  In the other, a confused and frightened looking woman is shown attempting to ride a motorcycle, but she is out of control and being thrown off.

A subset of Mann's work, apart from these variations, is more surrealist and often leaves out choppers and bikers entirely. Instead, the motifs are usually skulls, flames, nude women and tattoos, often playing with the figurative image which is tattooed on the skin coming to life.

One of the messages contained in Mann's overall body of work is an unresolved tension between, on one side, the biker artist's (painter, chopper builder, performance artist) craving for attention and recognition for biker art and the biker lifestyle in the mainstream world of middle-class straights and squares; and, on the other side, a rejection of that very same world based on the biker preference for biker values over mainstream values, and the need to show the squares and their opinions have no power over the biker. The biker/artist is aloof, yet bristles when ignored or disparaged and seeks ways of getting the right kind of attention.

A further contrast is apparent in the repeated theme of the honor and nobility of the biker, depicting bikers as modern knights or similar mythic heroes, and the appearance of members of Mann's El Forastero Motorcycle Club in many of his paintings, a club whose members have been found guilty for the crimes motorcycle theft and for "transporting and distributing methamphetamine" after it was discovered the club members pooled money to buy narcotics at their organized events.

He is the eponym of an episode of Sacred Steel Bikes on Discovery Channel.

See also 
 DIY Culture
 Lowbrow (art movement)

References

External links 
 

1940 births
2004 deaths
Artists from Kansas City, Missouri
Motorcycling mass media people
American illustrators
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters Biker metal (also known as biker punk) is a fusion genre that combines elements of punk rock, heavy metal, rock and roll and blues, that was pioneered in the late-1970s to early-1980s in England and the United States, by Motörhead, Plasmatics, Anti-Nowhere League and Girlschool.

Characteristics
Biker metal has been described as being influenced by punk rock, rock and roll, heavy metal and blues. Sleazegrinder, a writer at Classic Rock, described biker metal as "glam metal gone Mad Max".

Biker metal is characterized by its mid-tempo approach to metal, its "gritty and American" sound, and its alignment with biker culture as a whole. The genre has been contrasted with slower and more operatic forms of metal, such as Judas Priest's work in the early 2000s. Similarly, biker metal eschews the speed and virtuosity that rose to prominence in the 1980s.

Bands such as Black Moth, Orange Goblin, The Obsessed, Earthride and Black Label Society have been described as fusing the style with doom metal, whereas Clutch have been described as merging elements of biker metal and Southern rock into their stoner rock sound. Black Sabbath's song "Paranoid" has been considered a classic of the genre. 

Biker metal has proven influential to genres ranging from speed metal to hardcore punk and crust punk, and was integeral to the development extreme metal. Giuseppe Sbrana of Botswanan heavy metal band Skinflint has stated that biker metal bands were heavily influential on the aesthetic of African heavy metal bands.

Terminology
The association with biker culture has been present for most of heavy metal and punk rock's lifetime: Thin Lizzy were photographed frequently with motorcycles stretching as far back as 1973; Joan Jett appeared on the cover of Outlaw Biker Magazine; Judas Priest used a biker image beginning in the mid-1970s, however also borrowed heavily from sadomasochism; and the common dressing style of metalheads is closely tied to those in biker gangs. Spin hails Motörhead frontman Lemmy as the first to bring motorcycle culture into punk rock and heavy metal, likely through the influence of earlier rock bands such as Steppenwolf, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Grateful Dead. An early use of the term "heavy metal" was even present in Steppenwolf's 1968 song "Born to Be Wild", in reference to a motorcycle.

See also
 List of biker metal bands

References

1970s in music
1980s in music
British styles of music
British rock music genres
20th-century music genres
American styles of music
Heavy metal genres
Punk rock genres
Fusion music genres Biker Boy is a fictional superhero character created and portrayed by Zach Cone.  Biker Boy promotes bicycling as an alternative to walking and driving, and primarily aims to increase the use of helmets, among both children and adults.  Biker Boy is based in Greater Boston, Massachusetts, where he frequents local biking areas to spread awareness for bicycle safety.

Character
Biker Boy is a fictional superhero who protects and serves the bicycling community.  He was invented by Zach Cone, who did not initially intend to play the character as well.  "I began telling stories to the kids about superheroes", Cone states in an interview with The Boston Globe. " That's when I made up this character, Biker Boy, whose bike has magical powers that tells him if someone's in trouble. The kids loved it. They thought it was real and that I was Biker Boy, even though I told them I wasn't."  Biker Boy has also recorded voice announcement's for Boston's MBTA train and bus services, promoting bicycling as an alternative method of transportation.  The recording was a part of a larger initiative by mayor Thomas Menino to make Boston a more bike-friendly city.  Biker Boy has been consistently noted for his red cape.

Zach Cone
Zach Cone (born July 26, 1983), is a certified pre-kindergarten teacher.  He attended Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he realized he could sleep longer by biking to school.  Cone began teaching pre-school while he was in college, often telling the students superhero stories.  He invented Biker Boy originally as an external character, but the students thought he was talking about himself, hence Cone eventually assuming the role of Biker Boy himself. Cone states on the development of his character, "Six months ago I drove cross-country with some friends. We brought our bikes so we could ride as much as possible. That's when I realized Boston has a lot of work to do to be a bike friendly city and I decided to be part of the solution."

When asked, "How are you the solution to Boston's bicycle problem?" Cone, as Biker Boy, immediately responded "I talk to people politely. There's too much anger in the first place. And I encourage them to wear helmets."

References

Public service announcement characters
Male characters in advertising
Cycling safety
Public service announcements
Healthcare in Boston
Mascots introduced in 2010
Fictional bikers